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Criminal element taking root in growth corridors

Craig Butt

About 35 kilometres separate Ardeer and Warrandyte, and the two postcodes could not be any further apart when it comes to crime.

Ardeer, in Melbourne's west, has a crime rate that has leapt to 20,432 offences per 100,000 people in the past financial year, while on the other side of the city Warrandyte's rate is less than a 15th of that.

In the past financial year, 577 crimes were committed in Ardeer, up from 303 in 2007-08. Over that period, crime in the postcode increased at nine times the rate of its population increase to be well above the rate for Brimbank, the municipality in which it is situated.

In metropolitan areas, Campbellfield in Melbourne's north, Moorabbin in Melbourne's south-east and Geelong South had among the highest crime rates.

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Many of Melbourne's growth corridors have experienced big increases in crime in the past five years.

Crime has increased in Wyndham Vale, near Werribee, in each of the past four years, with 1204 crimes in 2011-12 compared with 462 in 2007-08, although in that time its population has risen 63 per cent. However, its crime rate of 6690 per 100,000 is still lower than the state average.

A total of 391,325 offences were recorded in Victoria in 2011-12, giving the state a crime rate of 7020 per 100,000 people. Crimes against property made up two-thirds of the total, while assaults accounted for one in 10 offences.

Warrandyte, 25 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, has one of the lowest crime rates in the state. It has a population of 8477 yet only 133 crimes were recorded there in the past financial year, a five-year low.

''I put it solely down to a very strong sense of community at Warrandyte,'' the local station sergeant, Stewart Henderson, said. ''I'd like to say it's a fantastic job that the police do, but we are only one aspect of the jigsaw puzzle.''

Before Warrandyte, he was based for eight years in Broadmeadows, a suburb that has one of the highest crime rates in the state.

''It was a culture change for me. One of the things I noticed was when I first came here was a number of people waving at the police car,'' Sergeant Henderson said.

''Busier police stations would probably laugh if they heard some of the jobs we entertain - little things that other people would go, 'That's not a policing matter', but we'll deal with it anyway. Just by having those conversations and engaging with people we find more about what's going on.''

The city centre had the largest number of recorded crimes in the last financial year, with 18,561, as well as the highest crime rate in proportion to its population.